Monthly Archives: February 2012

I guess I think inside the box, but when I think of remixes or reuses I immediately think music… thus; I will be showing an example of remixes with music. All the cool kids know Kanye’s song entitled, “Dark Fantasy” (also know as: “Can We Get Much Higher”), well that amazing hook isn’t all of Kanye’s genius. It’s actually a sample from Mike Oldfield(whoever he is) from his odd song “In High Places.” Kanye wasn’t the brains behind that whole song but does he credit Mike Oldfield? Yes, yes he does… “Contains samples of “In High Places” by Mike Oldfield, under license and courtesy of Mercury Records Limited”(http://hiphop-n-more.com/2010/11/kanye-west-my-beautiful-dark-twisted-fantasy-full-production-credits/) Now to the bigger questions was Kanye’s usage within the “fair-use” copyright standards? My answer to that question is sure, why not? We can sit around and discuss four factors that are supposed to be able to put a value to every situation (1. The purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes; 2. The nature of the copyrighted work; 3. The amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and 4. The effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work. http://www.bitlaw.com/copyright/fair_use.html) or I can say how I really feel which is creativity flows in all of use nothing we do is ever original. No matter how organic a thought is someone has probably created it… so why not take said creation and make it our own? I 100% feel as long as we give credit where credit is due and we done try to pass something as ours that isn’t then it cool. Looking at we all benefit… Kanye, Mike, the listeners… everyone gets a slice. I agree with the “Eggshells” dude. At some point you’re doing or using something that isn’t 100%. I personally don’t care if Kanye sampled from some guy as long as the song is good and I can jam it doesn’t even matter. I even like Matt Easton’s remix to Kanye’s song. I guess I just don’t mind seeing what someone else can do with the same canvas.

Have you noticed that kids don’t have real pen-pals anymore? Just in-case you forgot what those were or it’s before your time I’ll explain. A pen-pal was usually someone from a different country that you wrote letters to about your different cultures; usually assigned to you by your teacher to teach cultural differences. Pen-pals died out as soon as social networking became popular. There was no point in having a teacher assigning different pen-pals to students if they can go meet those people and other creepy strangers on Facebook (well I guess back then it was Friendster or Myspace). Even though you can talk to those people online why would you want to? Being on the same social network as you shows no cultural differences; chatting online wouldn’t even help build your communication skills because it wouldn’t be as professional as a letter you write in class. Media not just social media is “competing” with normal social interacting, (it’s true! A dude named E. Rossi said so!) and in my opinion is winning! If you look around so many people are casting away what we call normal and replacing it with tweets, chatting and reality TV. The uses and gratification theory basically says that we all have a reason or purpose for using media and is made up of five “basic assumptions.” The third basic assumption is that “the media competes with other sources of need satisfaction,” which is your Facebook and your telephone competing against each other to get you to use them. Imagine and epic battle over who you will use to tell your friends about your new boyfriend… instead of calling the people who would care why not just post it on Facebook and add it as a “Life Event” on your “Timeline”? Facebook clearly wins that battle. I guess my point is that we constantly let media win theses battles; i’m guilty I admit… I rarely plan anything with people in person; what’s the point? Facebook made it so easy. Sending invitations by mail is soooooo 1990!